• How Bon Iver Changed My Life

    I don’t exactly remember the first time I listened to Bon Iver. I must’ve been around 14 or so, but I do remember how my life changed. Before that point, I had always found it cheesy when someone talked about how a specific musician or artist had ‘changed their...
  • Artists of the Year 2017

    This year music-wise has been insane, seeing old artists reinvent themselves and new artists take centre stage in the industry. Here’s arguably some of the best artists of this year… Chart-toppers Taylor Swift View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) While Taylor Swift has...
  • Yes, we KNOW it’s Christmas time right now  

    Now that I’ve grabbed your attention with my dismal attempt at making a pun on one of the most annoying Christmas songs to have ever existed (for a good cause, I remind myself), let’s get started, shall we? Christmas music – yay or nay? Admittedly, when you’re still reeling...
  • So… You Think You Can Rap?

    Ask yourself, when you listen to music, do you really listen to what the artist is saying? Can you hear the technicality of the internal rhymes as they’re rapping, and how they’ve mastered that against the beat, as well as using play on words so smartly, that they’ve managed...
  • XXXTENTACION – The Humanity of X’s Album “17”

    In the summer of 2017, Floridian rapper XXXTENTACION released his debut commercial album, 17. The album is everything a summer album shouldn’t be: sad, bleak and hopeless. Even taking into account this controversial approach, I was still very surprised by the several negative reactions to the album. Music reviewer...
  • Drug Ballad: An Analysis of Narcotics in Rap

    “I like lean, I like drugs”. These are the opening lyrics to ‘Slingshot’, a song which served as my introduction to the upcoming underground rapper, Lil Xan. Given these lyrics (lean referring to a syrup-based recreational drug), along with his name itself (an abbreviation for the drug Xanax), I...
  • Ozzy Osbourne – A Curator of Fear

    In 1970, what would soon be known as the dark phenomenon of the era, hard rock band Black Sabbath crept into the world of music with the release of their self-titled debut album. Sabbath took an interpretation of the psychedelic blues-rock of the time (cultivated by Led Zeppelin) and...